From the Lawrence (Mass.) Eagle Tribune
www.eagletribune.com
Monday, May 12, 2003
Festival celebrates return of alewives
By Lois Marchand
Staff Writer
Area residents will have an opportunity to celebrate the return of the alewife.
A festival in Exeter celebrates the return each year of large scores of
alewives as they travel from the Atlantic to spawn in the shallow headwaters
of the Exeter River.
The alewife is a food fish similar to shad. A member of the herring family,
the fish abounds on the Atlantic coast. The name has been thought to be
an Indian name which means "bony fish", festival organizers said.
Alewives head upstream in the Exeter River each spring when days and nights
are equal in length. The adults make the upstream journey when they have
reached about a foot in length at about four years old.
Like salmon, they undertake the hard journey to spawn in the fresh water
streams where they were born -- and the life cycle begins again.
Some of the alewife nurseries are in fresh water rivulets and streams which
give rise to the Exeter River in several local towns including Chester,
Derry, Sandown, Danville and Kingston.
The river wends its way through Exeter towards Great Bay, eventually emptying
into the Piscataqua River, flowing past Portsmouth into the tidal currents
of the Atlantic Ocean beyond the Isles of Shoals.
The Exeter River Local Advisory Committee is a group of volunteers established
by state law, and wildlife habitat in the entire watershed.
One of those events is the upcoming "huge" Alewife Festival which
will be at Swasey Park in Exeter this month.
The public is invited to see the migrating alewives and other fish, meet
representatives from local and regional environmental organizations and
learn about the river's role in history.
There will be live music, exhibits by local artists, activities for children
and a canoe and kayak race.
"We feel so good about the festival this year," said Betsy Sanders,
Danville, a member of the festival planning committee.
Activities and exhibits are planned to help improve awareness of the alewife
population, issues affecting the quality of river water and the river environment.
"The people who are planning this are so excited this year. Last year
we had it on May 18, a Saturday, and it was so cold it snowed and nobody
came.
This year it will be on May 31 at Swasey Park and we hope a lot of people
come out this time," she said.
Scheduled events include a "Tour of the new Hampshire Fish and Game
Fish Ladder" at 10 a.m. and at 2 p.m. at the fish ladder adjacent to
the park and "Wildlife Habitat in the Exeter River Watershed"
presented by Matthew Tarr, UNH Cooperative Extension.
More than 25 organizations are taking part in the festival including Trout
Unlimited, N. H. Estuaries Project, Exeter Center for Creative Arts, and
Exeter Historical Society.
The Exeter River Local Advisory Committee represents the ten watershed communities
of Chester, Sandown, Danville, Fremont, Raymond, Brentwood, East Kingston,
Kingston, and Exeter.
From the Exeter (NH) News Letter, June 2003
Alewives return to freshwater flows
In the spring when day's light and night's darkness are about equal in
time, a historical and natural travel adventure starts within the saltwater
of the Gulf of Maine far from the inland banks of the Exeter River. It is
a well-known fact that fresh water flows downward through brooks, streams,
ponds, and rivers to end up merging with the salt water of the ocean. Now
at this time of year, a horde of 12-inch, silver-colored fish leave the
sea in a reverse direction heading with force of purpose inland to the freshwater
of their birthplace.
There are some unusual words that describe this special ecological event
that play a part in this spring ritual: "alewife", "anadromous",
and "estuary". Alewives are silvery, schooling fish that are part
of the herring family. They live in saltwater and migrate long distances
to spawn in freshwater. Alewives are a valued source of food, fish meal,
and oil. Alewives are anadromous, meaning that they spend most of their
life in saltwater, but return to freshwater as 3- or 4-year-old adults to
spawn. An estuary is where the freshwaters from rivers and streams mix with
saltwater from the ocean. Bays, tidal rivers, and salt marshes are estuaries
in New Hampshire. The Exeter River Watershed is a part of the "Great
Bay Estuary". The Great Bay Estuary covers 17 square miles with nearly
150 miles of tidal shoreline.
Between spawning migrations, the adult alewife can be found in the Atlantic
Ocean near the Continental Shelf. The journey of tens of thousands of alewives
begins in the Gulf of Maine. Picture them heading in through Portsmouth
Harbor toward land. The large school begins to depart into different directions
p; some going north to the Cocheco River, some going west into Oyster
River, some moving through Great Bay into Lamprey River, and another group
heading south into the brackish Squamscott River and then the freshwater
of the Exeter River. It is the alewives that arrive leaping up into the
Exeter River that are the focus of this story.
The alewife is featured on the Exeter Town Seal owing to its importance
to the community in Colonial times as a source of food and crop fertilizer.
While alewives lack their former importance, they remind us of the important
relationship between land use and water quality and the impacts of growth
and development on area rivers and the Great Bay. In Exeter, the alewives
make the leap from salt water to fresh water with the assistance of a NH
Fish and Game fish ladder adjacent to the Great Dam in downtown Exeter.
After spawning, the adults return to the ocean and the juvenile alewives
linger in fresh and brackish streams before moving seaward in the fall.
The increasing numbers of fish migrating to the Exeter River is cause for
celebration.
To increase the awareness of the Exeter River Watershed and its relationship
to the Great Bay Estuary, the Exeter River Local Advisory Committee with
its members from the 10 watershed towns (Chester, Sandown, Danville, Fremont,
Raymond, Brentwood, East Kingston, Kingston, Kensington and Exeter) sponsors
the annual Exeter River Alewife Festival in Exeter. The festival brings
together local community groups, business organizations, and government
agencies to educate and reach out to Seacoast communities about land and
water protection, management, and responsible use.
This article is brought to you by the membership of the Exeter River Local
Advisory Committee (ERLAC) with the support of the N.H. Estuaries Project.
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